HEKAYAH, FROM BEDOUIN TO BASS
The UAE’s multicultural diversity is celebrated in sound tomorrow, as poets, singers and musicians unite at NYUAD for National Day, writes Rob Garratt
The UAE’s bubbling cultural diversity will be celebrated and showcased at NYU Abu Dhabi tomorrow, at what will probably prove this week’s most colourfully cosmopolitan celebration of National Day.
Poets, singers and musicians of 10 nationalities, performing in at least five languages, will share the stage for the third annual Hekayah event, subtitled
The Story. With classical Arabic poetry programmed alongside Urdu folk song and hip-hopinfused English spoken word, the message from curators at the university’s trailblazing Arts Centre is clear – National Day is for everyone who calls the UAE home.
“This is probably the most alternative event in the UAE to represent National Day,” enthuses Ratish Chadla, the UAE-raised, Indian-born drummer whose Arabic fusion band Noon close the evening’s bill. “It’s very much a special, one-off event.”
Taking place under the stars at the university’s East Plaza courtyard, the free, open-air show promises a warm festival feel, with food trucks and a craft market dotting the fringes, and a mix of majlis and standard free seating. “We’re trying to celebrate the cosmopolitanism of the UAE,” says Shamma al Bastaki, one of
Hekayah’s six curators. “When you think of National Day, although it’s celebrated by everyone in the UAE, there’s a lot of focus on the local population itself. We’re really trying to paint a truer picture of the diversity of all the communities in the UAE. The fact that it’s hosted in NYUAD, which is probably one of the most diverse universities in the world, already sends a message that this is not going to be one of your typical events.”
Named after the Arabic term for “storytelling”, and recalling the regional tradition of passing tales verbally between generations, Hekayah’s guiding ethos is a celebration of tradition, community and heritage – of any origins, and in a myriad of different ways. For writers and poets, this means the freedom to present work in classical Arabic, colloquial English, or any other tongue in between. For musicians, the platform offers an invitation to utilise traditional instruments such as the oud and tabla, alongside the modern, international flavours of saxophone, bass guitar and even electronics.
“Heritage is an essential part of an individual,” says Ehrlich Ross Abuan, a Filipino poet who performs in English. “It is something that is passed on from one generation to another – it can be a value, belief, tradition and even a name.
“Without heritage, a person’s origin story is incomplete. I once believed that it is not necessary, but I was wrong. I realised accepting and celebrating your heritage gives you a sense of belonging-ness.”
Heritage is an essential part of an individual... Without heritage, a person’s origin story is incomplete EHRLICH ROSS ABUAN Filipino poet
Palestinian-American poet and self-defined “third-culture kid” Jennah Fakhouri, uses poetry to make sense of the UAE’s blur of communities in flux.
“My poetry enables me to discover the many facets of my identity and to come to terms with my own cultural differences,“says the American University of Sharjah student. “It allows me to express the frustrations and the joys of belonging everywhere and nowhere.”
Al Bastaki goes further, suggesting that Hekayah’s diversity probes the very definition of heritage in the globalised, multicultural society of the contemporary UAE.
A 21-year-old student at NYUAD, two years ago al Bastaki attended the first
Hekayah event as an audience member, and was blown away by the performances of her compatriots, such as Emirati spoken word leading light Afra Atiq. A year later, she attended the second event as a featured artist, performing both her own English translation of a poem by Souad al-Sabah, here renamed Veto on the Feminine Noon, and a redemptive, self-referential original piece, Poetry Stuck in My Windpipe, about her attempts to conquer a creative block – a battle won by the poem’s completion.
“Heritage doesn’t have to mean country or nationalism,” she adds. “It can mean different things to different people. For me, it meant being an Emirati woman on stage and going through my challenges; the same that anyone faces anywhere in the world: having writer’s block happens to everyone. [Facing] misogyny and pushing against it – that’s the global heritage I really push for.”
By performing both her work and a contemporary translation of al-Sabah’s Arabic verse, al Bastaki’s performance also served to highlight an emerging re-energisation of the Middle East’s longstanding poetic traditions, manifested in the UAE’s flourishing spoken word scene. Recent years have brought a multiplying audience and enthusiasm for open mic nights, such as the monthly Rooftop Rhythms, which celebrated its fifth anniversary earlier this year, but began attracting audiences numbering into the hundreds after moving to NYUAD’s campus hang-out the Marketplace in late-2015.
“Oral traditions and storytelling date back many centuries,” says
Sara Al Souqi, an award-winning Palestinian-Canadian author and poet performing at this year’s Hekayah. “Through spoken word poetry, I often feel like I am keeping this tradition alive. I am inspired by ideas and concepts that I believe move us as individuals and collectively as a society.”
As a trained special needs educator, Al Souqi’s trademark works explore issues of communication and self-expression by incorporating elements of the American Sign Language she uses professionally into her live routines – highlighting the underwritten visual component of spoken word performance.
Other languages to be represented onstage include English, Gujarati, Urdu and various forms of Arabic, including modern, classical and the Gulf’s distinct Nabati dialect. Known variously as the language of “the people’s poetry” and “Bedouin poetry”, the latter tongue is an entrenched part of the Arabian Peninsula’s oral storytelling traditions, which are often invoked when discussing the UAE’s recent embrace of live open mics.
“I don’t think it’s a linear evolution – Nabati poetry didn’t one day metamorphose into this new thing called spoken word,” says al Bastaki. “There’s always been a poetic impulse in the region, deep in the people from here, and also those who lived through the traditions of the UAE.
“What’s happening now is more like creating something new from something that already existed – all of these diverse voices drawing from the impulses and energy of poetic tradition in the region.”
As well as poetry, music will be represented by distinct artistic voices including Gujarati folk singer Hiralal Sangar, and Mohamed Morshed, who plays instrumental music he simply dubs “Emirati saxophone”. The evening will fittingly be closed by Noon, the world fusion act whose brand of “Oriental experimental” music perhaps best embodies Hekayah’s cosmopolitan ethos.
All long-term UAE residents, the Lebanese-Indian-Greek trio present Arabic maqam traditions in the guise of a jazz-rock trio – made up of oud, drums and electric bass – mixed with electronica fragments, while drawing variously on Indian, African and Latin rhythms.
“I really like the idea of the whole event in the first place, and the fact we’re part of it seems fitting,” says Chadla, the group’s 25-year-old co-founder. “We’re trying something eye-opening with traditional Arabic music, and I love the idea that we can show people that there’s more here [in the UAE] than meets the ear.
“It will be wonderful for people to be exposed to this music – and maybe even be inspired to do something similar themselves. People shouldn’t be afraid to try these kinds of things.”
Hekayah draws on the Arabian Peninsula’s oral storytelling traditions, also reflected in the UAE’s embrace of live open mics